Little Paper Crane
by His Little LabRat
Summary: Something has to change. That's all he needs.


It was just another day. Another day to get up, another day to survive, another day to go to sleep through at the end of surviving it. It was all spatial nothing and loops, routines, particular patterns of the everyday person that built up a steady consistency of nothing in particular but regulating enough money to keep yourself afloat long enough to ride out a recession in the economy or work your way around highly inflated summer gas prices. That's how he had lived his life. He was a good student in school, all A's and B's, a flawless record of high marks and aptitude for learning except that one C that he got in chemistry one semester in ninth grade because his teacher _really_ did not like him. Then he got into a good college. He passed high in his class. He got a degree. He graduated. He got a job. He did his job. He did nothing. All of his life quotidian and orthodox in every aspect.

But he was never sure if this is what he wanted in his life.

They say it is the past that defines people, and their actions that suit them, and that's how he stayed all his life. His past was repeatedly standard day to day; get up, survive, sleep, get up, survive, sleep. That's what his parents raised him for. That's what their parents raised them for. That's how he'd raise his children. If he ever were to have any, that is. But he would wait for that time to come on its own, and the time would surely come for it of its own accord. Until that time, he'd make a standard deviation in life, and that's how he'd live it. Then, when he had kids, he'd make a new deviation, and stick to that shtick, routine, habit, like he was running on a treadmill. He, like all other people knew, that every thing had an end, so maybe it was not necessarily a treadmill, but more of driving a car. The car would hit rough patches, and if you took a wrong turn, you'd hit a dead end and be out of luck.

Like all other people, he didn't want to take the wrong turn. Like all other people, all those other, special and unique people, all those other people who were just like him whether they were like him or not, they wanted to live. Everyone wants to live. But sometimes, he guessed, sometimes some teenagers would come and knock down the Dead End sign on the Highway of Life so they could hang it up in their rooms, and then the next unfortunate souls unlucky enough to come across it would have to make a decision that may or may not be the end of their life. Damn teenagers. They were always doing something wrong in society.

At any rate, he must have been in his mid twenties at the time. The days rolled together so drably that he no longer cared to keep track of them, much less the what month it was or the year itself. Of course, general things would remind him of what was around the corner - like fat men in red suits ringing bells as the snow fell or that poor, thin stick of a man that waited into a giant, more than likely scorching hot rabbit suit as the trees bloomed or when there were children running the streets everyday consecutively when the days became scorching hot, or when kids began getting costumes to dress up and be misfits for a day as the leaves began to turn their own wrong path and fall to the ground where they'd make their own use in their life to fertilize the planet's soil. Isn't that what dead things did? They "feed" the ground. Great. So he'd spend all of his life doing nothing waiting to fertilize the ground he walked on. Great, just great. That's exactly what he'd wanted, everything he'd build up for. Just to die, wither, muck to the ground. He needed a life change, he needed a new course, he needed a--

"Ahh!"

A boy. There was a boy on the ground beneath. He must have run into him or something while he was thinking… oh boy. That boy looked up at him and groaned slightly with his eyes closed, rubbing his own behind. As he opened his eyes, he laughed, his eyes and hair catching the sun in a solar flare that made a spectral flame about him. His ocean eyes lit up as he rested back on hands, laughing up at him. What a peculiar boy, he thought, but he was really too stunned by him to speak, his caramel eyes wide as he looked down at him.

"Oh, hey, sorry about that, I was kind of in a rush and I wasn't watching where I was going and, so, yeah, that was totally my bad, dude," the redhead boy said, smiling up at him widely, his glasses reflecting the sun as well as his eyes and hair did. How idiosyncratic, unordinary, unique; how-

"Oh, no, it was partially my fault too," he said, giving a very faint laugh as he extended his hand to the boy, offering to help him up wordlessly. The boy looked at his hand a moment, as if surprised and the wind blew past them. Maybe it was just his mind, but the world seemed to slow down just a little tiny bit in that moment, like this was supposed to be something important. He never took himself as the sort, all the times this happened in movies after all, it was between a man and a woman and this was… definitely not a girl. Oh god. He really needed to stop watching so many movies that they showed on television. Nothing like that ever really happened anyway - it was all a gimmick or something.

The boy grinned widely and laughed again, taking his hand. The boy's hand was so cold it felt hot, or maybe so hot it felt cold, but it was just… not right. It sent a static shutter through his entire body, and he couldn't help but wonder if the boy felt the same way. When he looked up however, the boy was just grinning, then let go of his hand, and whatever emotional or physical or psychological spark he felt immediately sizzled out into nothingness. It was familiar, in a way, like an awkward state of déjà vu in which you had only some inkling of an idea that you'd be there before.

He saw that smile one last time as he told the boy that he should be a little more careful, and then the boy took off running down the crowded streets filled with other faceless people. Something caught on the edge of his vision, and it made him look downward. He raised an eyebrow and stared at it a moment, then whipped his head up. "Hey, kid, you forgot your-" but the spectral flame of hair was already long out of sight, even in the colorless, faceless hoards of people walking about to go do their own nothingness until the end of their life. "… Or not."

He stooped down and picked it up, holding it in one hand.

Was this really where he'd turn in life? Was this fate? He suddenly felt a wave of cold wash over him and he shivered again, in the exact same way he had when he touched that boy's hand. He _must_ have felt it too. His shoulders suddenly felt heavier and his feet as well, as if they had turned to led. Looking down, his shadow flickered on the ground and only his grew darker, the shadows of all the other people looking so much lighter on the sidewalk. It was probably just his imagination, and he set it aside, holding the small thing in his hand. He peered at it closely again and then he felt colder as he did, like another chill had washed over him. He stared at it longer, and, faintly, on the side of it, he could see the name _Hanna_ scrawled lightly there, but it seemed like the longer he looked, the lighter the words got until they were virtually gone completely.

Maybe this was the right turn, he told himself, although the sense of dismay and cold pitted in his stomach. This was the right turn, he told himself again, more assured now as he held the object labeled _Hanna_. Yet, he couldn't help but feel a lingering sense of cold, like a ghost was hanging over him or something like that, even as he pocketed the object labeled faintly with _Hanna, the little paper crane named Hanna._

_Yeah, this was the way he wanted to go in life._


End file.
